Swaffham Bulbeck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Swaffham Bulbeck | |
|---|---|
| Formal status: | Village |
| Administration | |
| County: | Cambridgeshire |
| Region: | East Anglia |
| Nation: | England |
| Post Office and Telephone | |
| Post town: | Cambridge |
| Postcode: | CB5 |
| Dialling Code: | 01223 |
Swaffham Bulbeck is a village in East Cambridgeshire, England.
Swaffham Bulbeck itself is located about 10 miles from the City of Cambridge, and 7 miles from the famous town of Newmarket. The parish of Swaffham Bulbeck is part of the Ely diocese and the Deanery of Fordham and Quy. The benifice consists of five parishes, Swaffham Bulbeck, Swaffham Prior, Bottisham, Lode and Quy.
[edit] Culture and Community
Every year the village summer theatre company produces and performs one of Gilbert and Sulivans operas. Established in 1982 the company has run every year since, first at the Long Barn to the south of the village until its redevelopment in 1988 and then to a much more capacious setting in a barn central to the village by kind permission of the owner. This venue too has now come upmfor redevelopment and the production is now based at Downig Farm by kind permission of the Turner family.
[edit] Church
The west tower which was built in the early 1200's and is the most ancient part of a very ancient building. The tower is 12.5 feet square with three storeys and is supported by 8 buttresses. It is built of locally quarried clunch (from Burwell).
The Nave was constructed in the first half of the 13th century it consists of 4 uniform bays with 6 octagonal piers supporting the clearstorey which was added in the 15th century. The north aisle was built in about 1300 and the south aisle a few years later.
Apart from some fragments of 14th and 15th century stained glass in the north aisle, all the 10 windows in the aisles and 8 in the clearstorey are of plain leaded glass. The nave is some 57 feet long by 21 feet wide and the aisles are 11 feet wide. The Church can seat about 200 people at full capacity.
The churchyard contains many interesting gravestones - there are 6 tomb chests the earliest dating from 1742, and about 35 headstones with shaped tops dating from 1703 onwards.
As regards to the vicarage, in the late 1970's it was decided by the parish, that the villiage no longer required a vicarage in its own right. It was sold to the public, and is now a B&B.
